AUDITOR General, Deodat Sharma, in his latest report on how efficiently taxpayers’ money is being utilised, outlined an outrageous web of procurement breaches that occurred during the tenure of former Public Infrastructure Minister, David Patterson.

Such breaches had multi-million dollar consequences. In 2019, the APNU+AFC’s last legitimate year in office, Sharma said that a contract with a revised sum of $751.585 million was awarded by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) for the acquisition of spares.

Sharma said the entire sum was paid to the supplier although the contract stated that only 80 per cent of the contract sum should be paid on the signing of the agreement.

Even more egregious was the fact that the contract did not state the type, specifications, quantity, and cost of items. Sharma said spares amounting to $449.958 million were nonetheless verified as having been received in 2020.

This still left $301.627 million in spares outstanding. Two years later, the ministry is yet to receive these spares.

In a separate case, this time, pertaining to a telephone installation contract, Sharma said an award was made in 2016 to the tune of $12.470 million for the supply, delivery and installation of a new telephone network at the ministry.

Sharma said the full contract sum was paid to the contractor, but it has been more than six years after the contract was signed and the new telephone network is yet to be installed at the ministry.

In terms of overpayments to contractors, Sharma found that in 2019, the sum of $100 million was overpaid for the upgrading of the road from La Bonne Intention to Beterverwagting. This was still not recovered.

He also said that in the same year, $112 million was overpaid on the contract for the upgrading of the road from Beterverwagting to Triumph.

Noteworthy, Sharma said the Audit Office had undertaken a special audit on the construction of the Durban Park Jubilee Stadium.

He recalled that construction commenced in 2015 in preparation for Guyana’s 50th Independence Anniversary which was celebrated in 2016.

A private company named Homestretch Development Inc. (HDI) was created to implement this project. As at December 31, 2017, Sharma said amounts totalling $1.150 billion were expended.

He said to this date, payment vouchers to support expenditure incurred by the ministry totalling $70.610 million were not produced for audit examination. As such, the completeness, accuracy, and validity of this amount could not be determined.